“Another girl is a musician. She plays the violin—quite tolerably. Yes, yes, I recall your views about violin-playing: it’s either good or bad—nothing between. I’ll say this, then: she played some simple and unpretentious things and did them very deftly. Simple, unpretentious: oddest thing in the world, for she is a recent graduate of our school of music and began this fall as an instructor. Wouldn’t you have expected to find her demanding a chance to perform a sonata at the least, or pining miserably for a concerto with full orchestra? Well, this young lady I put down as a plain boarder—you can’t maintain a big house on memories and a collection of paintings. She’s a nice child, and I dare say makes as good a boarder as any nice child could.
“The third girl—if you want to hear any more about them—seems to be a secretary. Think of having the run of a house where a social secretary is required! I’m sure she sends out the invitations and keeps the engagement-book. Besides all that, she writes poetry—she is the minstrel of the court. She does verses about her chatelaine—is quite the mistress of self-respecting adulation. She would know the difference between Herrick and Cowper!” …
Cope pulled out his watch. Then he resumed.
“It’s half past ten, but I think I’ll run on for a few moments longer. If I don’t finish, I can wind up tomorrow.—Mr. Randolph sat opposite me. He looked at me a lot and gave attention to whatever I said—whether said to him, or to my neighbors right and left, or to the whole table. I didn’t feel him especially clever, but easy and pleasant—and friendly. Also a little shy—even after we had gone up to the ballroom. I’m afraid that made me more talkative than ever; you know how shyness in another man makes me all the more confident and rackety. Be sure that voice of mine rang out! But not in song. There was a piano upstairs, of course, and that led to a little dancing. Different people took turns in playing. I danced—once—with each of the three girls, and twice with my hostess; then I let Ryder and the two young businessmen do the rest. Randolph danced once with Mrs. Phillips, and that ended it for him. My own dancing, as you know, is nothing to brag of: I think the young ladies were quite satisfied with the little I did. I’m sure I was. You also know my views on round dances. Why dancing should be done exclusively by couples arranged strictly on the basis of contrasted sexes … ! I think of the good old days of the Renaissance in Italy, when women, if they wanted to dance, just got up and danced—alone, or, if they didn’t want to dance alone, danced together. I like to see soldiers or sailors dance in pairs, as a straightforward outlet for superfluous physical energy. Also, peasants in a ring—about a maypole or something. Also, I very much like square dances and reels. There were enough that night for a quadrille, with somebody for the piano and even somebody to ‘call off,’—but whoever sees a quadrille in these days? However, I mustn’t burn any more gas on this topic.
“I sat out several dances between Mrs. Phillips and Mr. Randolph. He thought he had done enough for her, and she thought I had done enough for them all. And one of the young businessmen did enough for that springy, still-young Mrs. Ryder. Once, indeed, Mrs. Phillips asked me if I wouldn’t like to try a third dance with her (she goes at it with a good deal of old-time vivacity and vim); but I told her she must know by this time that I was something of a bungler. ‘I wouldn’t quite say that,’ she returned, smiling; but we continued to sit there side by side on a sort of bench built against the wall, and she seemed as well pleased to have it that way as the other. She did, however, speak about a little singing. I told her that she must have found me something of a bungler there, too, and reminded her that I couldn’t play the accompaniments of my best songs at all. Arthur, my dear boy, I depend on you for that, and you must come down here and do it. No singing, then. But Mrs. Phillips was not quite satisfied. Wouldn’t I recite something? Heavens! Well, of course I know lots of poems—c’est mon métier. I repeated one. Then other volunteers were called upon—it was entertaining with a vengeance! The young ladies had to chip in also—though they, of course, were prepared to. And one of the young businessmen did some clever juggling; and Mrs. Ryder sang a little French ballade; and Mr. Randolph—poor man!—was suddenly routed out of his placidity, and responded as well as he could with one or two little stories, not very pointed and not very well told. But I judge he makes no great claim to being a raconteur—he was merely paying an unexpected tax as gracefully as he could.
“Well, as I was saying, the man in the wheeled chair came in. Of course he hadn’t been down to dinner—I think I saw a tray for him carried along the hall. As he was working his way through the door, I suppose I must have been talking and laughing at my loudest; and that big, bare room, done in hard wood, made me seem noisier still. He sort of stopped and twitched, and appeared to shrink back in his chair: I presume my tones went straight through the poor twisted invalid’s head. He must have fancied me (from the racket I was making) as a sort of free-and-easy Hercules (which is not quite the case), if not as the whole football squad rolled into one. Whether he really saw me, then or thereafter, I don’t know; he wore
